


Once More...Dear Friends

by Branch



Series: Seishin [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon - Anime, Drama, F/M, Porn, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Branch/pseuds/Branch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After events are over, Mustang and Hawkeye both have to deal with finding new careers, as the country has to adjust to a new government. In the process, their differences in viewpoint and background begin to surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy wakes up in the hospital.

Roy woke far more slowly than usual, which would have been his first clue that something was wrong, had he needed a clue. The distant ache that dragged him to consciousness had already sent him a full report on wrongness, however, and clues were superfluous.

By the time he pried an eye open he was also fairly sure he was drugged.

Once he blinked the glare away he was presented with a ceiling. It could be a hospital ceiling; it seemed likely. The first question was traditional, though, so he asked. “Where am I?”

Or, at least, he tried to ask. He was surprised to hear it come out as a mumble. The dry mouth might have something to do with that, and he would have preferred not to have noticed because now he really, really wanted a drink.

“Roy?”

The whisper came from his left side, and his left eye seemed to be covered for some reason. He turned his head and winced as the ache in his forehead became much less distant. Now he could see who had said his name, though, and that distracted him. Hawkeye was sitting forward in a chair beside the bed, eyes wide. She looked… different.

Well, she was out of uniform, but he’d seen her out of uniform before. There was something else.

“Taisa?” she asked, voice more urgent this time and less fragile.

That was it! She had sounded… breakable. Something he had never heard her sound before. And she looked the same way. Pale. Taut lines pulled her mouth thin. He’d seen her frown before, seen her worried. But he’d never seen fear in her eyes.

Roy frowned, and then winced again and unfrowned hastily. That really hurt. “Chuui?”

“Yes. Don’t move too much, you were shot,” she added, quickly, pressing a light hand to his right shoulder.

Shot? Bradley had used his sword, though. “Came out of the cellar,” Roy retraced his path out loud. “Had the boy. Made it out the door…” This time the frown was barely a twitch before he caught it and stopped. There had been someone outside the door, yes. “Who?”

“Archer,” Hawkeye supplied, voice flat.

Roy groped, in his mind, after what must have happened. But nothing came. “I don’t remember.”

“I’m amazed you remember the cellar,” Hawkeye snapped. “He shot you in the head! The bullet clipped you, probably while you were turning, and shattered the orbit of you left eye; if you’d been any slower, if you’d turned the other way to dodge, you wouldn’t be alive and the doctors have been saying you might not ever wake up anyway!”

That did explain why it hurt so much whenever he tried to frown. And also why his left eye was covered, now he thought about it. This would probably alarm him when his thoughts were running more straightly. “I suppose the paperwork will accumulate a great deal before I get back to it, then,” he murmured with reflexive sardonicism.

She sagged back in the chair. “You’re all right.” She pressed a hand tight over her mouth and closed her eyes for a long moment, and Roy blinked.

For the space of two long breaths she was not his professional aide. She was a woman, years younger than he was, her normal steel stripped down to iron by exhaustion.

She was beautiful.

On the third breath she straightened again, First Lieutenant Hawkeye again, and reached for the call button. “You still have a lot of morphine in your system, so pay attention and remember not to say what you were really doing that night, while the doctors are checking you over,” she told him briskly.

“Of course,” Roy agreed, and lay back, bemused, as medical personnel flooded the room and Hawkeye stood back against the wall.

He’d accomplished his goal, which was good. Now, what was he going to do about _this_?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy recovers and Lisa keeps watch.

It was the smell again.

It was different this time, though, not just the smell of cooked meat, but something else, too. Something that caught in the back of his throat like burning oil.

Blood slid under his fingertip, always thinner and more watery than he thought it should be.

And he choked and reached again for the pattern in his mind. And again. And again.

But it wasn’t a skull in his hand, it was a gun; and there were two bodies on the floor in front of him.

Roy started awake with a jerk that set his head throbbing. Someone was cursing vigorously, and he heard the slithery thump of books being kicked aside. Hawkeye trod carefully into the faint lamplight glowing through the window, and looked down at him. “Bad one?” she asked quietly.

Roy shrugged, trying to find some spot on the pillow that would hold his head still enough for the left side to stop throbbing. The doctors swore the bones had reknitted, but Roy had his doubts when he woke up like this.

Hawkeye looked him over, gaze measuring in the half-dark. She plucked a sprig of hyacinth from the vase on one of the shelves and set it casually by his head as she sat down in the chair beside his bed.

Her chair, these days.

The scent of the flowers was sweet and strong and clean, and Roy closed his eye and inhaled deeper.

Hawkeye crossed one slippered foot over her knee and rubbed her toes. “I should have kept you at my apartment longer,” she said with some asperity. “At least I could walk across my guest room without tripping over anything.”

“I imposed on you for long enough,” Roy murmured. He was glad it was spring. The hyacinth had a gentler scent than the potted rose she’d silently deposited next to the guest bed early on during his stay with her.

A soft snort answered him. “There’s barely room in this flat for all of your things plus you,” she pointed out. “There’s a bookshelf in your kitchen, and the only real open space is the floor of your workroom. You should get a house. It isn’t as though you’ve used much of your salary for anything over the years; you can afford it.”

The commonplace discussion calmed the tension through Roy’s chest and stomach, and his next breath was freer. “I have no idea how to go about finding a house,” he observed, just to keep the conversation moving. “I gather one needs to be a bit careful, not to get stuck with anything unsound.”

“So take Hughes with you. I’m sure he’s had plenty of experience, by now, in what to look for.”

Roy imagined asking his best friend to go house-hunting with him. Then he imagined Hughes’ glee at the supposed breakdown of Roy’s bachelor ways, and the gleam in Hughes’ eye as he got out the pictures again to illustrate the joys of married life. And then he shuddered. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in coming along instead?” he asked, trying to stifle the undertone of dread.

Hawkeye became so still he looked over at her. She was staring out the window. “I suppose so. If you like.”

The night shifted like a ball rolling a quarter turn; the new resting point was becoming familiar to him. “I would like it. Yes.” He wanted to reach over and touch her hand. He wanted to say something leading about how she would be spending so much time there she should have a say in the house. He wanted to address the woman sitting beside him with her light hair hanging loose over the shoulders of her fuzzy cinnamon colored robe, a little tangled from sleeping on his couch as she had been for most of this month.

Every time he did that, though, she got that distant, tolerant, _ Hawkeye-chuui_, look in her eyes and stood up. Or asked him what book he was reading. Or stuffed a chunk of apple in his mouth. So this time, in this quiet dim time, he made himself stop and wait for her.

After a long moment she looked back down at him. “Then I’ll come.” This time, her smile wasn’t distant. Now he let himself smile back.

“Thank you.”

* * *

It was, Roy felt, completely in keeping with his life that the letter arrived the next day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows [Counterpoint: Unresigned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/49624). What does a career soldier do when he loses his career? And what do his friends do about him?

Roy’s past slid through his fingers into a box: a folded “portrait” of him, product of Elysia’s first finger paints; a box with his captain’s insignia—so that’s where it had gone; two letter openers, one of them an old knife of Hughes’.

“I can’t believe they actually cashiered you,” Havoc muttered, leaning against Hawkeye’s desk. She shoved him out of the way to get at the last of her drawers, tucking a handful of letters into her own box.

“Oh, I’m not cashiered,” Roy said, lightly, feeling around the back of his flat drawer. Something had been rattling back there, he was sure of it. “I’m honorably discharged to enjoy a well-deserved retirement in light of both my service and my injuries. The letter said so in black and white.” Havoc’s long mouth twisted around his cigarette, and none of the rest of Roy’s officers looked any happier.

Roy’s erstwhile officers, that was.

His fingers hit something hard and square and Roy fished out a rectangular box. It was a folded chess board. Roy brushed the dust off it gently, and for the first time that day his smile softened. “Stop worrying so much,” he told them without looking up as he stowed the chess set carefully where it wouldn’t get scratched. “It’s the price I expected to pay.”

“So… what will you do, now, Sir?” Fury asked, wavering between looking hangdog and a rather unsuccessful attempt at optimism.

Roy wasn’t about to admit that he didn’t know; that kind of thing was bad for his image. Not to mention their morale. “Back to my alchemical studies, perhaps. There’s plenty of reading in the field that I haven’t been able to keep up with, all these years,” he murmured. He folded his box shut and caught the roll of tape Hawkeye tossed him. The noise of shearing off a long strip made a good excuse not to expand on his alleged plans.

“Hmph.” Havoc folded his arms. “Maybe I should go track down Hakuro myself, while he’s still in the mood, and see if he’ll let me resign my commission, like he did Hawkeye. I could use a less dangerous job.”

Roy looked up at that. It would take a finely tuned ear to hear the genuine offer and question buried in Havoc’s careless tone, but he’d listened to Jean Havoc for years. “No. Shoui.” He straightened. “You’re due for promotion, and the army needs good officers.”

Havoc blinked, probably at being called a good officer, and looked aside, resettling his shoulders. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Roy agreed easily. “So there you are.”

Besides, letting Hawkeye go had been an insult to her from Hakuro, and if Roy had to think about that vindictive gleam behind the bluff smile being directed at any more of his subordinates he was going to forget all the fancy daydreams about setting Hakuro’s ribbons on fire and just punch the bastard. He raised an eyebrow at Hawkeye and she nodded, hefting her box. Roy gathered up his own and stepped toward the door.

“Taisa!”

Roy looked back, with a wry smile for how quickly he responded to a rank that was no longer his, even on his retirement papers.

His staff drew themselves up and gave him salutes so sharp he could have shaved with them. After a long moment Roy set down his burden and returned them, just as sharp and clipped. “Carry on, gentlemen,” he said, quietly.

They remained at attention as he left.

* * *

“Stop staring at that box.”

Roy raised his head and managed to smile at Hawkeye with an edge of teasing. “Is there something more interesting I should be staring at?”

“Yes,” she told him briskly, and tossed a newspaper sheet over the offending item. “Look at this.”

Roy looked. And then he chuckled as he read down the list of properties for sale. Ever organized, Hawkeye had underlined a handful of them in red. And then numbered them. “Shall we go shopping, then?” he suggested, still slightly bemused by the whole idea of shopping for a house the way he usually went shopping for a good cut of beef.

He should have known it wouldn’t be quite that simple, of course.

* * *

“… and we just replaced the plumbing last year, it won’t give you any trouble.”

Hawkeye applied a firm toe to one of the shiny steel pipes. Rust sifted out of the socket where it curved, followed by a trickle of water. She gave the owner a cold look, and he smiled weakly.

“Eheh.”

* * *

“…hasn’t been a flood for _years_, and we cleaned out all the rotted plaster, you can hardly smell it any more except in the summer…”

* * *

“The neighbor’s dog is a bit loud,” the owner admitted, as they walked through the yard and a burly, black and tan dog in the next yard flung itself against its leash barking with rage that it couldn’t reach to take off anyone’s leg. “But she always keeps him tied up.”

Hawkeye turned a stern eye on the dog and walked toward the fence.

“Miss, you might not…!”

“Sit!” she ordered.

The dog paused, one paw in the air, considering. Then it sat down and regarded Hawkeye with ears forward.

“Good dog.”

The owner’s mouth opened and closed silently, and Roy smirked.

* * *

Roy stared. “Chuu… Hawkeye,” he murmured. “Is this room, in fact, lime green?”

“I’m afraid so,” she returned just as softly.

“Ah. Good. At least it isn’t some fresh complication with my vision.”

“I don’t think even trauma could produce purple carpet to go with it.”

“Thank God,” he whispered fervently, as the owner shepherded them, cheerily, into the next room.

* * *

Roy was both thoroughly distracted, and also starting to have second thoughts about whether more space was worth this kind of trouble, when they found it.

He stood in the middle of the living room and turned in a circle, laughing under his breath. The white plaster walls were half covered with bookshelves running from the wood floor to the high ceiling. Another room on the ground floor and two upstairs had still more shelves. And there was an apple tree in the back yard that had made Hawkeye smile and reach up a hand to touch the first pale blossoms.

“What do you think?” he asked her.

“There’s certainly room enough,” she observed in an approving tone. “And everything on the list Gracia gave me checks out. The windows are tight and everything stands square.”

“Well, yes, but do you like it?”

Uncertainty flickered over her face, an uneasy fit on her clear eyes and firm mouth. “I think it’s a very nice house,” she said slowly.

Roy found himself momentarily at a loss for how to go on. He’d figured out that Hawkeye didn’t like it when he flirted with her, or even complimented her in passing, so teasing wasn’t going to work. But if he just came out and asked…

No. Not until he found out why she kept brushing him away.

“I just wondered if you might like to choose a room for yourself, instead of resorting to the couch.” He looked out the large front window, hands tucked casually into his pockets. “It only seems fair, since you helped me find this place.” His mouth curled up suddenly. “An even trade.”

Hawkeye seemed to relax, when he put it in those terms, and Roy dared a little further.

“Actually, a really fair trade would be to offer you a half share of the house.” As her eyes widened he added, “Since you shared your house with me all winter.”

“I suppose… the room at the back of the second floor is shaded nicely.” Her smile was a bit crooked. “If you really want to give up the space right after finding it.”

“Company is more interesting than space.”

There was something unusual behind the long look she gave him. Something he would have called wariness, if that weren’t ridiculous. But her chin lifted again and she nodded.

“All right.”

* * *

Roy’s attempt to pack up his own library was instantly vetoed by Hawkeye on the grounds that that was heavy lifting and he wasn’t medically cleared for that, yet. After a few overhead reaches started his shoulder twinging again, he gave in and agreed, but that left him without anything to do while movers boxed up his life around him.

Nothing but try to figure out what he was going to do with his life, now. Watching all the layers be stripped away didn’t help. He kept finding things that reminded him of why he had chosen a military career.

Of why he had stayed.

A copy of his letter of application to officer’s training, pressed in the first pages of Ruland, earnestly explaining that he wanted to put his alchemical abilities at the army’s disposal in the field. His commission, carefully framed, now dusty from having been stuffed into the bottom of a bookshelf for years. A squared off chunk of pale eastern sandstone with glassy streaks through it where his own fire had melted the silicon. A folded, fading piece of notepaper, tucked loosely into his sole cookbook, listing all the living generals from eight years ago and marking how much time it had taken each to reach his rank. A yellow newspaper clipping, slipped between two of his old coded notebooks, attributing the stability of the annexed Northern territory to the State Alchemist who served under the military governor.

Some things were older. His copy of Hollandus, and Vaughn’s works, both of which he had inherited from his first teacher in alchemy. His aunt’s round, black teapot that she had given him when he moved to Central City, the one whose reflections had fascinated him as a child. Even among those, though, he kept finding echoes of his choice.

When Hawkeye walked in to find him turning his father’s Iron Cross over and over in his fingers she called up Hughes. Roy made a personal note that Hawkeye had no reservations about fighting dirty.

* * *

“Funny how it all takes up more room in boxes, isn’t it?” Hughes commented as he picked his way through the piles of cardboard. He eyed the dust smears all over the couch and took a seat on one of the boxes instead. “Here.” He plunked a bag down beside him and pulled out two bottles of beer, tossing one over.

Roy smiled to see that it was their compromise brand, the one that was light enough to make him happy and full enough to satisfy Hughes.

Hughes held up his bottle. “Here’s to you, ex-Junsho.”

Roy clinked his bottle against it. “And to you, ex-Junsho.”

They drank and Hughes sighed. “I really thought he wasn’t going to be able to get you, too.” Then he snorted and his voice trailed off into a now-familiar mutter. “… dereliction of duty. I return from the dead, and all he can say is ‘dereliction of duty’!”

Roy shrugged. “As far as he knows I murdered our commander for personal ambition. Even if he can’t quite prove it.”

Hughes gave him a sharp look. “He wouldn’t have pushed it the way he did unless it was personal.”

“Of course not.” Roy examined his bottle thoughtfully. “But it’s why he actually got me discharged. If it was just personal he’d have demoted me and kept me around to gloat at.” If nothing else, the forced introspection of sorting through his things had reminded him that Hakuro actually was a good solider, albeit an idiot in a lot of other ways.

“Mmm.” Hughes took a long swallow. “Think you’d have preferred that?”

“It’s something that happens when you play the promotion game,” Roy said, at length.

“Something that happens to a soldier?” Hughes translated, quietly. He leaned an elbow back on the boxes behind him and stared up at the water stains on the ceiling. “And now we’re not.”

Roy’s mouth tightened and he made himself nod. Now he wasn’t.

So what was he?

Hughes narrowed his eyes. “As an alchemist you still have influence,” he pointed out. “You can still protect this country.” Then he frowned. “Are you still a State Alchemist?”

Roy blinked. “Technically, I suppose I am,” he said, slowly. “At least… Hakuro never asked for the watch back, and I didn’t think of it.” He frowned in turn. “That won’t do. There’s no real leverage without a commission, too.”

Hughes threw his head back and laughed. “Drink up, Roy, you’ll be fine.” A gleam lit his eye. “Though, if you’re giving it back… “

Roy recognized that look, and couldn’t help the smirk that spread over his face. “Slingshot?” he suggested.

“Not nearly fancy enough,” Hughes protested. “We have reputations to uphold, here, Mustang.” He pulled out more bottles. “Now, let’s think about this.”

* * *

“You melted the watch.” It was a statement, not a question. “On Hakuro’s desk.”

“Er. We were drunk?” Hughes offered, with a winning smile.

Hawkeye gave them a cool, unimpressed look. “And you got in without an appointment how?”

“We told them the truth.” Roy settled back on his box-chair smugly and crossed his legs. “That I was going to return the watch. They let us right through.”

“And now Hakuro has a silver paperweight shaped like a hand? Your hand? Snapping?”

“A very fine piece of work, if I say so myself.” Roy and Hughes grinned at each other.

Hawkeye was silent for a long moment before she nodded sharply. “Excuse me. I have to go pack the rest of my things.”

Roy blinked after her as she strode out and then frowned at Hughes. “She won’t move in because I ask her to, but she will because she’s annoyed at me?”

“Women,” Hughes said wisely. “Have another beer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [Iron Cross](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Cross) is a German military medal.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comes after [Counterpoint: Pick Up Sticks](http://archiveofourown.org/works/49632). Roy comes to some realizations and starts to move again.

Roy looked up, as Lisa scuffed through the kitchen door, and backed into the corner by the sink with an amused smile.

He’d been rather startled, at first, to find that Hawkeye was not, of her own accord, a morning person. She had the talent of waking up quickly when she needed to, but left to her own devices she was never up before sunrise and joined the world of the living gradually. Her eyes were open by the time she got downstairs, but both her four-legged housemate and her new two-legged one knew to stay out of her way while she more or less sleepwalked through her morning routine. Roy felt a certain scientific curiosity, watching her, about what would happen if he moved, say, her tea-strainer from its usual home one morning.

Today it looked like he might find out. She stopped in front of the empty fruit basket and stood for several breaths blinking at it sleepily.

“We’re out,” Roy pointed out, helpfully.

“Oh.” It took another moment, but apparently her response to missing items was to skip that step. She collected her tea and toast and settled at the table. Roy gave her a fond look behind her back and slid the second half of the eggs onto one of her plates before he went back to putting away his own dishes.

Segregated dishes weren’t exactly the kind of thing he’d had in mind, when he first mentioned sharing the house with her. Nor had he quite known what to make of the fact the she’d stenciled her name in neat, white paint on the underside of all her furniture—the kitchen table, for example. But he had to admit, it saved argument over whose turn it was to wash up. And, recalling a few of Hughes’ and Gracia’s early spats over the definition of a clean dish, perhaps it was just as well.

Not, he thought, a bit disgruntled, that his relationship with Lisa merited any kind of comparison to Hughes and Gracia.

She stretched and leaned back in her chair. “So, fruit. We also need more eggs and milk. The honey is close to out. We’ll need more rolls by tomorrow. More meat, too; maybe chicken this time. I was going out today, anyway, I’ll pick things up.”

Roy checked the level of her teapot. All that before her second cup and without checking the pantry; he was impressed. She’d make any quartermaster green with envy. The thought still twinged a little, and he turned away from it. “It’s a beautiful day out,” he observed, instead. “We might as well both go; we could take Black Hayate along.”

Black Hayate emerged from under the table to perk his ears at them, hopefully, and Lisa smiled. “All right.”

Ha. Maybe he really was figuring her out. Casual was the ticket. Roy was whistling as he went to fetch his shoes and cane.

Watching her emerge onto the front step and turn her face up to the sun and draw a deep breath, Roy took a moment for purely aesthetic appreciation. The light jacket and skirt suited her well. He grinned, wondering what would happen if he suggested that a shorter skirt would suit her even better, and whether it would involve him having to duck. But as they walked, and he listened to her cheerful greetings to neighbors and shopkeepers, his thoughts turned more serious.

Lisa had been a sweet, cheerful girl, when he’d met her. But she’d been seventeen at the time. He hadn’t been surprised that she’d become more solemn, when she showed up as his new Second Lieutenant two and a half years later. People changed as they grew up. And Hawkeye had still been kind, as well as formidably capable. It was the capability that showed first, by then, and the new seriousness suited it. He’d thought it was natural to her, and thought nothing more of it.

Now…

“Peaches!” She leaned over a bin to inhale lovingly. “They’ll be perfect in a few days. Let’s get some!” She tossed her hair over her shoulder to look back at him with a laughing smile. Roy could feel his expression softening in return, but his chest twisted.

She was beautiful. Bright and beautiful and… free. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t quite evade that word when he saw her like this.

They were on their way back to the house before he made up his mind to speak.

“Hawkeye,” he started, quietly, drawing her attention back from Black Hayate’s frisking around, “why did you enter the military?”

Abruptly all that brightness looked more like sun shining on steel. “Because what you wanted to do was _right_,” she pronounced, looking straight ahead. “And you needed someone to pay attention and watch your back.”

“You weren’t happy there at all, though, were you?” he asked, still more quietly. Not that he had noticed until the present contrast hit him over the head with it, and maybe she had a point when she brushed off his small attempts at courtship.

For a few moments he didn’t think she would answer, but eventually she stopped rearranging the bunches of lilacs in the top of her bag and looked over at him. “No. I wasn’t. But all of us did things we weren’t happy doing, to get where we wanted to go.”

Roy had to swallow before he could reply. “We did.” He hesitated a moment. “Lisa. Thank you.”

Her eyes warmed, and this smile almost made him trip over his own feet.

Maybe he owed Hughes an apology for all the ragging he’d given the man over mooning around, when he first started seeing Gracia.

* * *

It didn’t take long, after Hawkeye left for her appointment, for Roy to return to brooding. Edward Elric might be the most obvious of the lives lost to Roy’s plans and ambitions, but clearly it wasn’t the only one. And after all that, all he had done was to remove a single betrayer. The keystone, perhaps, but in the doing he’d lost the chance to do more. It wasn’t enough to balance the losses. His dark thoughts were only interrupted by Hughes’ arrival on his doorstep.

“Well, looks like the two of you have settled in all cozily,” Hughes commented, sprawling down on the couch.

Roy glared at him. On second thought, apologies were out of the question. Maas had earned every bit of grief Roy had ever given him, at one time or another. “If you don’t have anything useful to say…”

Hughes waved a hand. “Patience, patience. Actually I have a job prospect for you.”

Roy’s brows rose. So far, he had been completely unable to come up with any job he was well qualified for, outside of the military, besides maybe factory work. He’d sooner hire on with a road crew, except that he still needed the damn cane to compensate for his lost depth perception.

Hughes smiled, and propped his elbows over the back of the couch. “How’d you like to work for the government, Roy?”

Well, that was a possibility he hadn’t really considered. Roy sat back and made go-on motions.

“You know there’s still no Minister of Defense?” Hughes’ voice was casual; his eyes were anything but.

Roy’s mouth tightened. There had, in fact, been an article in the paper just this morning about Parliament’s increasing pressure on the Chancellor to select a Minister to oversee the military. He nodded silently.

“Did you know the Chancellor is going to be present for Professor Gauss’ lecture at the Central University tomorrow night?”

“And the point of this information?” Roy asked, a bit cautiously. “Hughes, you know what Gauss thinks of the State Alchemists. He’d throw me out on my ear if I attended, and what good would that do anyone?”

“He’d certainly speak to you, it’s true,” Hughes allowed beaming. “Quite vehemently, I imagine. Very difficult to ignore, that.”

Roy narrowed his eyes at his friend, mind ticking over. “Are you suggesting that I come out in support of separating the state funded alchemists from the military?” he asked, softly. It was the only thing he could think of that would make the right kind of stir at a gathering like Gauss’ lecture.

“The Chancellor seems to approve of the idea,” Hughes observed. His own gaze sharpened. “Do you still want to make sure that what you wanted to do gets done?”

Roy took a fast breath. Could he? Could he really make all the sacrifices mean something more? Carry the trust of the lives lost, one way and another, a little further? “_Yes_,” he said, fiercely.

Hughes’ answering smile was just as fierce. “There’s our Roy Mustang.” He pulled a folder from under his jacket and tossed it into Roy’s lap. “Here’s your hook, then. Everything I could find on Chancellor Ebert. It isn’t as much as it would have been a year ago,” he added with a sour face, “but there are still people who tell me things if I ask nicely. Up to you to reel him in.”

Roy laughed out loud. “I will.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Comes after [Counterpoint: Trading](http://archiveofourown.org/works/49634). Roy stirs things up and gets a new job.

Roy lurked by the wall, watching the reception get into swing. The long, windowed hall was bright with lamps and starting to echo with the rise and fall of voices commenting on Professor Gauss’ presentation. It was worth comment, Roy thought. Gauss was not known as a good teacher, but he did have the gift of framing his conclusions clearly and completely, and any lecture of his was worth attending.

Of course, Hughes had failed to mention that _this_ presentation would be about the ethics of civilians doing alchemical research for the military. Roy would have to think of a suitable way to thank him for that little surprise.

The small cluster around Gauss moved toward the buffet table, looking like it would cross into the Chancellor’s sphere where he leaned against a wall of his own. Time to move.

Roy couldn’t help a faint smile when Gauss stiffened at the sight of him; fortunately a bit of smugness would only start things off on the right note. He nodded cordially as he picked up a glass of wine. “Professor Gauss. An excellent presentation, as usual.”

“Mustang!” Gauss nostrils pinched. “I hardly expected you to attend. Surely you can’t have any interest in the subject of alchemical ethics.”

“On the contrary Professor,” Roy returned coolly. “I’ve had a great deal of interest in it for a long time.”

Gauss’ mouth worked like he wanted to spit. “You! What interest could someone like you, who willingly uses your abilities as an _officer_ of the military, claim to have?”

“Because I was an officer, Professor.” Roy let his voice drop, relaxed for once and let some of the passion he rarely allowed in public view to show. “Only those who are willing to give themselves wholly to the service of their country and abide by the restrictions of an officer’s training and discipline have any place practicing alchemy for the military. Only those who can make no pretense to themselves or others that they have not chosen to kill with their power.” Roy lifted his chin and stood straight, offering no apology for his own choice.

Gauss eyed him with suspicion, but also, perhaps, a hint of grudging respect for that honesty. “That wasn’t what your precious military did, though.”

Roy’s mouth quirked. “No. One of the drawbacks of being an officer, I admit, was the requirement that I obey my superiors. Even when I thought their policy was wrong. All I could do under those circumstances was shield those under my own command. And seek enough seniority to affect policy myself.” He shrugged.

Gauss examined him for a long moment. “If I hear right, you won’t be affecting much of anything now, will you?” he asked at last, conversationally. Roy stiffened.

“If we are fortunate,” he answered, slightly stifled, “our new government will make it less necessary.”

“I suppose we can always hope,” Gauss snorted.

They exchanged wary nods and Roy took his drink and retreated to a window. He leaned his head against the cool glass and took a slow breath. Speaking, however vaguely, of the events that led to his discharge had spilled a box of memories that he tried to keep closed these days. Bright, clear, cutting moments recalled themselves: his own flame spreading like a live thing over the stones of Ishvar; excusing himself to run and empty his stomach when he met Tucker’s first chimera; the Elric brothers and their search, and Hawkeye’s voice telling him of Edward’s sacrifice and what it had accomplished.

Silently, he apologized to those memories for stopping. Another breath, and he straightened. He was moving again, now.

* * *

Hawkeye was sitting at the kitchen table, wrapped in her robe, one leg tucked up under her, when Roy got home. She had the big teapot steaming in front of her, and one of Roy’s teacups was set out at his place. “How did it go?” she asked, nodding toward it.

Roy poured out a cup for himself and wrapped his hands around its warmth with a sigh. “Just the way I expected it to. The Chancellor definitely noticed.” His mouth twisted. “The entire room noticed, I imagine. Now we’ll see if it was enough.”

She took a sip from her cup, eyes steady on him over the rim. “Will you really be satisfied with this?” Roy blinked at her and she snorted softly. “Just because I didn’t particularly enjoy being a soldier doesn’t mean I didn’t notice that you did.”

The thing that gave him hope, no matter how puzzling Lisa was to him, was that she so obviously cared. That probably wasn’t what he should be thinking about right now, though, and Roy made himself consider her question. “If I understand the position correctly, yes. I think it will be quite satisfying,” he answered, softly.

She nodded briskly. “Good.” She set her tea down with a clink. “Then all we can do now is wait. In the meantime, you can help me prune the apple tree. It looks like it will put out a lot of fruit, this year. If we want any at all next year we should trim it back, according to Renata. “

The new topic was welcome, even if their next door neighbor, Renata, wasn’t his very favorite source of advice. Roy wrapped prosaic home-concerns around him like a blanket against the cold of uncertainty. “Do we have heavy enough shears for that?” he asked dubiously, tallying up their accumulated yard implements. There weren’t many, so far.

“No,” Hawkeye said calmly, “but we do have two spare shovels and an alchemist, which should amount to the same thing. Maybe you can even get a new name out of it–the Household Alchemist.”

And then she giggled, probably at his expression.

* * *

Four days later Roy ran a slightly paranoid hand through his hair, as he followed a Chancellery Guard, to make absolutely sure there were no apple leaves or twigs still stuck in it. He was fairly sure his appearance wasn’t why his guide was giving him dubious looks, but it didn’t hurt to be sure.

The dubious looks escalated to a muffled protest when Roy was announced and the Chancellor waved for the Guard to stand outside the door. Ebert sighed.

“Do you want to kill me?” he asked Roy, bluntly.

Roy opened his mouth and closed it again. “No,” he managed, finally.

“There, see?” The Chancellor made a shooing motion at the Guard, and turned back into his office.

Roy firmly suppressed his amusement at the exasperated look the Guard directed at Ebert’s back and instead gave the man a sympathetic smile on his way in.

“Sit,” Ebert directed, taking a seat behind his desk and leaning back, rather wearily to Roy’s eye. “So, tell me, did you know I was going to be at Professor Gauss’ presentation?”

Clearly, Roy was heading for another superior who could spot him coming and going. This could be good or bad. “I was aware of your presence,” he offered.

The Chancellor gave him a wintry smile for that diplomatic prevarication. “You know how to speak the language. Good.” He leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Parliament is right; we need a Minister of Defense. But, aside from the difficulty in finding someone qualified, the job is going to be bad enough that I don’t want to appoint anyone who doesn’t understand what they’re heading into and volunteer for it anyway. You have the knowledge for the job, and seem to have the ambition; that leaves us with disclosure. So listen.”

Blunt was definitely the order of the day. Roy composed himself to listen.

“Our neighboring countries are furious over our expansion into their territories, and the fact that there’s a new government doesn’t stop them from holding us responsible. What it has done, so far, is suggest enough civil unrest and disorder that they’ve taken the opportunity to counter-attack across our borders. I’m trying to make new treaties without giving away any of our land or emptying our treasury, but it’s damn slow going. Drachma, especially, wants both territorial concessions and reparations. So the person who’s put in charge of the military will have to convince them to hold firm at the borders without allowing any more ventures across them into our neighbors’ land. I’m told that’s incredibly stupid, tactically speaking; the Minister will have to enforce it anyway. He will also have to figure out how to keep some kind of stability among our recent conquests without starting any more outright civil wars, because we can’t afford more of those. Somehow, we’re going to have to wave the threat of military alchemists in our neighbors’ faces and _at the same time_ give evidence of reforming our State-sponsored alchemical research to ensure that atrocities like those of the past fifty years don’t happen again. The Minister of Defense will be the one doing the lion’s share of this work, and he’s the one who will have to take the fall if any of it blows up.” Ebert sat back. “Still want the job?”

Roy had to take a moment to catch his breath, after that litany of disasters waiting to happen. The immediate thought that this was a life’s work and more was both terrifying and oddly comforting. “I didn’t imagine it would be an easy job,” he answered at last, quietly. “Yes, I do want it.”

“Why?”

Roy smiled crookedly back at the Chancellor’s narrow gaze. If blunt was Ebert’s style, Roy could give him blunt back. “I imagine you pulled my personnel file, Chancellor. It must note that my first deployment in the field was to Ishvar.”

Ebert tapped his fingers on one of the folders stacked about his desk and nodded.

“I gave myself to my country as a soldier, Chancellor,” Roy said, looking down at his folded hands. “I wasn’t unwilling. But what happened there was insanity. I wanted to keep it from happening again.” He looked up. “And now you’re offering me the leverage to see that it doesn’t. You have your volunteer, Sir, if I’m the one you want.”

“God help us both, Mustang, I think you probably are.” Ebert sighed, and then paused. “Did you really kill Bradley?” he asked in a tone of academic curiosity.

Roy couldn’t quite stifle a wince. He’d hoped this wouldn’t come up. He was entirely too likely to get himself, not only barred from office, but thrown in a mental hospital if he answered honestly. But Chancellor Ebert was the man in charge of the whole nation, now, and if anyone needed all the information straight, it was him.

He took a deep breath. “If I may tell the whole story from the start?” At Ebert’s nod he settled back and tried to order his thoughts. “Human transmutation is forbidden because of what it results in…”

Ebert listened to the whole explanation, of Homunculi, of the Red Stone, of the wars fought only to drive desperate research, with no expression. When Roy finished he was silent for a minute.

“That would sound far more unreasonable if I hadn’t spent the past couple months reading over the results of State Alchemists’ research and the specific orders Bradley sent to certain officers in charge of the worst incidents,” he said, at last. “As it is, I regret to say that I believe you. For everyone else’s consumption, I suggest you stick to the story that Bradley was killed by runaway monsters of research, not that he was one himself. It will make a good, acceptable reason to limit future research and oversee it more closely.”

Roy nodded, his respect for Ebert’s political abilities rising another notch. “Yes, Sir.”

Ebert heaved a long breath. “All right, Mustang. I’m going to appoint you. You’ll have to appear before Parliament, in case they have any questions while they debate your approval for the post. Be prepared.”

“Of course.”

They exchanged sharp smiles along with firm handshakes, in parting. This superior’s clear perception, Roy decided, was a good thing. What a pleasant change.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Mustang dives into politics.

Roy was glad it took Parliament a handful of days to clear their schedules enough to call him in. It took that long to hammer out a story about the past year that would match all checkable facts and not land any of them in prison for murder or in front of a firing squad for treason.

“Okay, so you hustled my body out of town because you suspected I had been attacked by Gran’s remaining faction to stop me telling about some of his Alchemists’ work.” Hughes scribbled a few more dates on the sheets of scratch paper scattered over the living room floor. “That should work. And Gran’s dead so he can’t object. Even better.”

“I was right,” Hawkeye put in from the couch, flipping through a binder that had somehow wandered out of Personnel without being checked out. “None of the guards who heard me tell Bradley you were staging an insurrection survived. And Havoc says that the memories of the surviving soldiers from that northern deployment are very fuzzy about just why there was a need to plan an attack on Central. The idea that it was to rescue Bradley, not depose him, seems to make all of them very relieved.”

“That’s direct testimony taken care of, then.” Roy stretched and yawned. “Thank you for handling that.” He paused as a thought struck him. “I don’t suppose you’d like a job with the ministry, too?” He slid a casual mask over a certain amount of hopefulness.

Hawkeye sniffed. “It was bad enough, dealing with bureaucratic idiots as an officer,” she noted. “I’m not going to deal with them as a secretary.”

Roy sighed, but couldn’t help a small smirk as he admitted, “I do have a bit of difficulty picturing you as a typical secretary.”

“Ministerial aide?” Hughes suggested with a grin.

“That’s just a secretary with a better salary,” Lisa objected. “Money doesn’t help with the idiots.”

Roy listened to them, amused. Lisa had always had an edge of exasperation to her when she’d had to deal with Hughes, but it actually seemed to be softening into something like teasing now that she’d left military formality behind.

“So aim higher,” Hughes declaimed. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t expect a good job out of this. _I_ do.”

Roy smirked at him. “It’ll be nice to see someone else get accused of promotion through favoritism for a change.”

Lisa shook her head at both of them and reached for the next binder.

* * *

It was not an entirely new experience to hear his merits and flaws debated over his head in his presence. It seemed to be a favorite tactic of generals when they called field officers up on the carpet. But it had a different flavor when politicians were doing it.

“… valiantly risked his life and career to safeguard his country’s leader, I’d say that’s a good sign!”

It was harder to keep a straight face, for one thing.

“One, haven’t we just finished saying that it’s a damn good thing Bradley’s gone?” inquired one of the more skeptical Members, Rosa Luxemburg if Roy recalled correctly. “And two, if it was all about valor and so on, why did he _lose_ his career?” The compression of her lips as she sniffed reminded Roy irresistibly of his Aunt Helena, as did the sharp gaze she bent on the other end of the gallery. “Since we have Hakuro-taisho here, perhaps we should ask him, hm?”

Roy approved. Hakuro had been practically vibrating in his seat for the past ten minutes; it wouldn’t do for him to actually explode. Roy might need him later.

Hakuro surged to his feet at the President’s invitation. “You do well to ask, Madam! Mustang was discharged because he was suspected of causing King Bradley’s death!”

Startled silence rippled over the Chamber. Perfect. Roy sighed into that silence and lifted a brow at Hakuro as the Parliament turned to look at him.

“Taisho, I realize that we have often been opponents due to our efforts to further our individual careers. But surely you can see that it’s no longer necessary. Our careers will run in different paths, now.” He let his mouth tighten a bit, and watched the room full of politicians take in the implication that Hakuro was attempting to slander his late competition.

Hakuro, on the other hand, seemed to completely miss it, just as expected. “That’s beside the point,” he snapped.

Roy sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. “The point, Taisho, is that you didn’t have any proof when you came up with a way to be rid of me, and you don’t have any now. You accomplished what you thought appropriate; I’m a civilian. Be satisfied.”

Anger and triumph mixed in Hakuro’s face in answer to this straight line. “Yes, a civilian,” he growled. “Just what suits your backstabbing cowardice.”

Roy’s eyes narrowed. “Taisho,” he rapped out coldly, cutting across the several sharp inhalations through the Chamber and crossing his fingers in hopes that Hakuro wouldn’t notice them, “you forget who you address.”

Hakuro reared back. “What?!”

“Or do you disdain to take orders a civilian?” Roy asked, softly, laying the last piece of bait down with care.

“Who wouldn’t?” Hakuro shot back.

The rustle of disturbance in the Chamber became something close to a roar, and Roy sat back, watching it jerk Hakuro back to awareness of where they were and who was listening. He suppressed a grimace. It had almost been easy enough to make him feel guilty, watching Hakuro’s sudden confusion.

Almost.

Finally, Roy raised his voice. “Enough!” He looked only at Hakuro, as if he still addressed the General, but the Parliament quieted, too. “We will discuss this later, Taisho,” he said, firmly. “If it is Parliament’s pleasure.”

Hakuro sank back into his chair, unable to do anything else at that point. Luxemburg spoke into the silence that followed.

“All right, Friedrich.” She turned an imperious look on the Chancellor. “I see your point. I withdraw my objections.”

Roy met her hard green eyes, as murmurs of agreement spread among the other Members. There was no trust there, and his mouth quirked.

“Thank you for your understanding, Madam.” He said nothing about her support, which is was clear to him he didn’t have.

An unwilling answering amusement tugged at her lips. “Quite.”

* * *

“… the Chancellery Guards are your guards, too, now. Here’s your office.” Ebert pushed open a thick, dark wood door to show a large, handsome office and a large, handsome desk stacked with a large pile of folders. “Those are the profiles of available, qualified people in other Ministries that you can draw on to build your staff. I think that’s everything.” He clapped Roy on the shoulder. “Go to it. Good luck.”

Another mountain of personnel folders. Lovely. “Ah, Chancellor,” Roy lifted a hand, and Ebert looked over his shoulder on his way out the door. “Can I draw on other sources for staff?”

Ebert grinned. “Have some soldiers in mind? Sure, just pass them with Karr, over in Intelligence.” He waved. “We’ll see you Friday for the weekly Cabinet meeting.”

Roy leaned against his desk and surveyed his new domain for a long moment. A staff would be nice, but first things first. He dug out the phone and called the front desk. Ten minutes later Hakuro was shown in.

Roy rested his shoulders against the cool glass of a window and crossed his arms, considering the man in front of him. Hakuro stood stiffly, jaw set.

“You’re a good soldier, Taisho,” Roy said, at last, and watched Hakuro blink. “You’re a good soldier,” he repeated, “but you’re not suited to politics. The two don’t generally go well together. So what I need to know is whether you can do your job and leave the politics to me.” He turned to face the window. “If you can, I’ll leave you in charge of the army. If you can’t I’ll call Werther-chuujo back from East City to replace you.”

And if Hakuro tried to keep playing the game by lying to him about his intentions, now, Roy would have to remove him completely, and that would be a loss of experience the army couldn’t well afford at the moment.

“What job are you going to do?” Hakuro asked after a moment.

Roy smiled. A question instead of a reply was a good sign; a quick answer would almost certainly have been a lie. “I’m going to do my best to pull us all out of the hole Bradley dumped us in,” he replied, candidly, and tapped a finger against the glass. “It will involve some very difficult maneuvers from the Army, and I need someone in charge who can hold them together anyway.” He turned to look Hakuro in the eye. “Hold them together and obey my orders.”

Hakuro’s face was a study in conflicting emotions. Roy picked out pleasure that someone thought Hakuro was capable of this; fury, probably at the idea of taking orders from Roy; and shock, probably at the coldness of Roy’s tone. Come to think of it, Hakuro had never heard Roy giving direct orders, had he?

Well, he’d better get used to it, now.

Finally Hakuro drew himself up to something that wasn’t quite attention. “Very well,” he said, tightly. “Sir.”

Ambition won again. One problem down, fifteen thousand and forty three to go. “Good. I’ll be in touch, Taisho.” Roy nodded a dismissal. Hakuro was barely out the door before he’d pulled the phone out of the paper mountain again.

“Hughes? It all worked out. Get over to Karr and convince him to clear you. We’ll figure out what your job title is later…”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lisa and Roy reach an understanding.

Roy looked out the back door at Lisa and Black Hayate romping back and forth under gold leaves. Her hair was tangled from the breeze and there were grass stains on her knees. She was laughing as she held up a stout stick for Black Hayate to leap after, and bits of bark had smeared her palms with black and brown.

She was beautiful.

He was reminded of that less frequently, lately, since he spent nearly twelve hours a day in his office. As if to make up for it, when he did have occasion to notice it afresh it hit him all the harder.

In their old jobs, her flawless professionalism had shielded him. Now it was just one more hook, one more aspect of her magnificence. Now he could also see her humor and happiness, her love for each moment of life as it came. Now her competence and relentless focus highlighted the other parts of her.

Steps scuffed up behind his shoulder and he looked around to see Maas shaking his head with an expression of tolerant affection. “You should say something, you know.”

Roy didn’t bother with denials. “If I could figure out what to say, I would,” he sighed.

Hughes clutched his chest in fake shock. “Mustang, at a loss for what to say to a woman? Is the world ending?” He glanced around with exaggerated worry.

Roy scowled at him, wondering which coat he’d left his gloves in. “Oh, shut up.”

Maas’ mouth twisted. “Seriously, Roy,” he said, voice lowering. “You have an advantage, here, but I’m not sure how long it’s going to last.”

Roy was still searching for a good answer to that when Lisa spotted them lurking inside the door and waved.

“Roy! Your turn! Come on; you won’t ever get rid of that cane if you don’t exercise.”

He abandoned Hughes at once and was halfway across the yard before he wondered why Hughes was suddenly laughing.

* * *

Roy decided, later, that it must have been Hughes’ fault. Those remarks must have stuck in the back of his head. Because it was a mere two nights later that he was putting away his dishes while Lisa washed hers, and glanced over to see the light sliding over her hair where it was slipping out of its clip and the shimmer of water on her cheekbone as she brushed a strand back with a damp wrist. And his mouth stepped in without consulting his brain.

“I’ve never met another woman who’s so beautiful when she isn’t trying,” he murmured.

And then he winced as she stiffened, abruptly reminded of why he’d gone so long without speaking up. Well, no way out but through, now that he had.

“Is there any particular reason you don’t like to be complimented?” It came out a little more plaintively than Roy intended, but he was really at a loss.

There was genuine anger in Lisa’s face as she rounded on him, and he took a startled step back. “Yes, there is. It’s because that’s exactly how you talk to every other woman in the world, right before you assume that she’ll be swooning at your feet and ignore her! You’ll pardon me if I prefer that you don’t treat me like that!” She swung back around to the the sink and grabbed another of her dishes, spine rigid.

Roy stood with his mouth ajar, while his mind tried to run in three directions at once. If it sounded the same he really should probably stop trying to compliment her. But he didn’t want to! And it wasn’t the same at all; Lisa was nothing like other women. Honestly, did she think he was stupid enough to expect her to flutter and swoon like the others? Well, obviously, if she was this angry.

…if she was this angry…

Roy put his jaw back where it belonged and took a deep breath. All right, maybe Hughes had a point after all. If he was wrong he was probably about to get a lot worse than a slap. If he was right, it would be worth it. He came into her arm’s reach. “Lisa.” She looked back at him and he winced at the darkness in her eyes. Another breath. “I don’t think of you the way I think of them. Truly.”

She turned all the way around, expression challenging. “Then how do you think of me?”

“You… impress me,” Roy said, slowly. His mouth quirked. “It would honestly never occur to me that you would be that silly, getting all starry eyed over a couple smooth words.”

Lisa’s eyes narrowed. “Then why do you say them to me?”

Roy paused, surprised at the force with which the answer came to him. And then he let out his breath and lifted his hand to touch a strand of her hair with hesitant fingers. “Because this time they’re true.”

She searched his face for a long moment; in fact, that one moment felt longer than the entire past year of puzzling and wondering. What she found seemed to satisfy her at last, though, because her expression softened and she nodded. “All right.”

When she set a hand on his chest Roy wondered distantly whether she could feel his heart speed up under her palm. He closed his eyes and lifted her other hand to press to his lips.

“Thank you.”

When he opened his eyes she was smiling.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows [Another Round](http://archiveofourown.org/works/49648). Their world has changed.

The first assassination attempt should probably not have come as a surprise. And, in a way, it didn’t. Twelve years of being shot at for one reason and another ingrained some reflexes pretty deeply, and Roy was ducking before the motion of someone aiming to fire registered with his forebrain.

What Roy should not have let himself be surprised by was the fact that, these days, the people around him were far less able to take care of themselves. In the time it took him to pull on a glove behind the overturned buffet table, the shots tracking after him had hit two other people.

He had a lot of time to think about that while he suffered one of the Central Hospital doctors to check him over for any re-injuries and listened to the anxious voices of families out in the hall. Fate seemed to feel this was an insufficient reminder, though; just to make it all more pointed, he found Hawkeye waiting for him in the hospital lobby wearing both her guns.

“Are you all right?” she asked in a businesslike tone, eyes marking each person around them.

“Fine.”

Her eyes flickered to him, at the flatness of his voice, and then away again. “Let’s go, then.”

A car was waiting and she shepherded him briskly into it. That was familiar, but the world stretched in a moment of vertigo when she slid into the back seat beside him. She was always ahead of him, wasn’t she? Whenever it felt like the world was blowing away in ashes, she was ahead of him to arrange the details and drive the car. But no, that wasn’t what she was any more; nor what he was, any more.

The ride was a silent one.

She didn’t speak again until she’d closed and locked the front door behind them. “The doctors checked you over?” she asked quietly. He nodded. “And they’re sure there are no new injuries?” Another nod.

She stepped into him and buried her head against his shoulder and held him so tightly his ribs creaked. Roy blinked, and slowly closed his arms around her. “… Lisa.” His voice was rusty in his own ears. “It’s all right.”

“No it isn’t!” she said violently, if somewhat muffled. “Didn’t you get shot at enough when it was your job?”

He leaned his head against hers and laughed bitterly. “I wasn’t the one that got hit. Obviously, it isn’t me I need to worry about, now.”

She lifted her head to glare at him and shook him once, hard. “Yes it is! Where is everyone else going to be, if you stop worrying about yourself and it gets you killed?” She wound her arms still more tightly around him. “Idiot.”

His snort of laughter had a little genuine amusement in it, this time. “You’ve gotten a lot less polite, out of uniform.”

“Yes, now I can say it, instead of just thinking it,” she shot back, tartly.

He leaned against her with a long sigh. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

That got another snort, which seemed to satisfy her enough to let go of him—at least until she’d steered him to the couch. He sat looking down at their fingers tangled together, and ran a thumb over the back of her hand, feeling the strong lines of tendon under smooth skin.

“It wasn’t a soldier. Or even an ex-soldier,” he said, at last, voice low in the still dark living room. “It wasn’t even someone from Lior, which would have made sense to me. He was from the North, a village just inside the old border.” He brooded for a moment. “What used to be a village.”

Lisa pressed closer against his side and her hair brushed his cheek as she nodded, silent and unsurprised. Of course, she knew the aftermath of marches and occupations as well as he did. “I’m going with you to these official functions of yours from now on,” was all she said.

Roy was silent for a moment, trying to negotiate between his undeniable relief at the thought of having another person nearby who was competent in danger, and the countersurge of protest that he didn’t want Lisa to put herself in danger. He frowned a little, exasperated with himself for such a ridiculous reaction.

“I’m going,” Lisa repeated, a note of warning sounding in her voice. “It’s obvious you still need someone to watch your back.” Her lips curved in the lamplight coming through the window. “Especially if it rains.”

Roy drew himself up, dignified. “I have no intention of arguing with that.” A corner of his mouth twitched. “Though it would seem rather difficult to hide two guns in an evening dress.”

Lisa snuggled comfortably into his shoulder and tugged his arm around her. “That’s what thigh holsters were invented for.”

Roy took a moment to enjoy the mental image of how some of the more stuffy Ministry officials and Members of Parliament would react to this beautiful woman in their midst calmly pulling out a gun instead of shrieking and fainting. And then he took another moment to savor the idea of taking down the assassins before they could shoot the civilians, and drew a deep, satisfied breath. He pulled Lisa a little closer and murmured against the nape of her neck, “You are a delight.”

“Oh, I get it; you just love me for my guns.” She poked him with a teasing finger, but he could feel the heat of her blush against his cheek.

“And someday I’ll even get you used to taking compliments,” he added.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Maybe.”

Roy laughed softly and they leaned against each other in the dim warmth.

**End **


End file.
